by grace through Faith

Tag: pain

I am a talker, those closest to me know I can chat/blab for days and always have one story or the other to tell. So I find my way of trying to get over things is talking. I talk it out with people. People I believe can encourage and uplift my spirit and truly help me heal.

But what happens when everyone is so busy with doing life that you don’t have the people at the very moment you need them to be. Not because they have abandoned you or are anything of that sort but simply because everyone is on a different journey and sometimes their journey does not allow them the opportunity to be there every single time!

So what happens is, instead of wallowing in self-pity, you learn to Encourage Yourself and this is a principle worth imbibing.

Accepting that shocking events will occur in your life is one step in making life a little easier. I’m not saying to start living in fear but instead, start learning to build your strength from each shocking and challenging situation. Looking at how you have reacted, what has truly helped and what attitude to drop.

Now, this is not a call to lead a pretentious lifestyle and never be open about your struggles to those you trust. But to remember that even when we feel like we don’t have help around, we have an omnipresent God who is always…always watching.

Take a leaf off the great King David’s book. In first Samuel 30:1-6, a horrible thing had happened to David; and it had caused him great heart ache that he wept until he physically couldn’t anymore. It was bad enough that it also put his own life was at risk.

However after all this outburst of emotion, verse 6 ended with “but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God” (KJV).

That didn’t mean that suddenly everything got better, but it allowed him the strength to take the next step forward; which meant going to battle to contend for what belonged to him.

I’d leave you with this; whatever happens in life I’m learning is definitely for a purpose! but it’s up to you whether you let yourself get swallowed by it, or you get on top of it. There’s time for everything, time to laugh and time to cry. Just do not let one season set a negative tone for the rest of the other seasons in your life. Too much time is spent logging around baggage from the past that could instead have been setting stones in our lives.

And I get it, everyone has varying levels of strength emotionally, and that is where we need God! You pray, you cry, you pour your heart out, you study the word but ultimately you must be ready to move forward, whatever it takes!

So I was rushing to heal because I mean who likes to feel crappy. I did try to suppress it though and claimed to be okay but deep down, I really wasn’t.

You see I had asked God to heal my heart and he had instead given me a new heart but my immune systems were fighting against it and I was not taking the necessary drugs to supress it. Say what?-Just keep reading.

At the time Joyce Meyer was carrying out a 30-30 challenge worldwide, 30 minutes of the word for 30 days. I felt God tugging at me to take on the challenge. I remembered at first saying that’s not for people like me, it’s for those that need to get their word right and learn the importance of spending time with you. I’m way past that, me and you we cool and besides I know when I get down on my word studying business it goes deep so you know.

Well He opened my eyes to see that maybe it’s not just for the newly born in Christ but for people like me who felt they had arrived but were left behind because they never really continued their journey.

Yep I had stopped digging deep, I had stopped laying myself at the master’s feet; I had now become my own dictator as to when the word comes. Thankfully He didn’t leave me maybe because He saw my ignorant heart or maybe His mercy just decided to abound.

So I took up the challenge by His grace of course. I found myself waking up early in the morning sacrificing that extra hour of sleep just to spend time with Him and his word and from where the strength came forth, I know not.
For the days my flesh got a better part of me, I still managed to find time during the day to spend with His words. No doubt there were times I didn’t come around to it for an entire day but He helped me know from the start to expect it and not be discouraged when it does happen.

He was my strength in my weakness.

Long story short, I not only took on the challenge but I set myself up to hear and learn from God whichever way I knew how. A month later I had started attaining wholeness and I didn’t even realise it until it was pointed out to me.

I started to know who and whose I am. Started growing and basking in the love of Christ, started enjoying his presence even after the challenge and most of all I started seeing the Light in my darkness.

You see we live in a rapidly paced world and in bid to feel and ‘look’ better immediately after a hurt we turn to whatever suits or numbs that pain even if it’s for a short while and most of the time whatever ‘it’ is, leaves us even more wounded.

However God is saying how about you get the water that never leaves you thirsty again. How about I go with you through the healing. How about you let yourself heal by letting me love on you.

How can you truly understand what I am going through after all you’re God. I’m not sure you understand how hurt and pain feels. What it means to have your heart broken over and over again. What it means to have your hopes shattered.

Through his death, we received life.

So don’t tell me it’ going to be ok and Joy comes in the morning because the night is enough to kill me.

Some say you’re the all-knowing and the only truly wise God. I have no dispute against that but I doubt you understand what it means to be human else you won’t be able to casually just say I will be Ok. Of course I know I will be, after all nothing lasts forever but the scar will forever be a reminder and maybe ‘it’ will pass but I will never remain the same again.

So I had a mouth full. God told me to be honest with him and I took honest to a whole different level. So here’s his reply

I know what it means to be fully human as much as I know what it means to be fully GOD. It clearly didn’t sink when you read that I came to earth; born fully human.

Faith, I was rejected by those I called my very own, do you understand how that hurts? Though God I made myself extremely vulnerable becoming like you (mankind) in order to truly feel your pain.

I prayed so hard for the father to take the cup (suffering, pain, anguish) away from me you know why?

I was scared…

Yes I was scared… I had become fully human and I felt every emotion possible. I gave up whatever spiritual defences I had to overcome whatever suffering lay ahead and though I had the choice to pick them back up, I chose not to because I really did want to be able to relate.

It hurt me to see my earthly mother hurt. I had so much love and affection for her yet at the time I could do nothing to take away the hurt in her eyes when she saw the fruit of her womb treated like a dunghill.

My very own friends & companions were not even able to stay up with me and pray with me that night at gethsemane. If at least they had kept awake and stayed by me it would have helped but no they slept off. One of them even denied ever knowing me.

Now the physical pain, oh beloved you don’t want to get me started on that one. Imagine pain that transcends the physical into the spiritual. That’s how much it hurt.

So yes I understand what it means to hurt both physically and emotionally, I understand how it feels to be rejected, to not get what you truly want because God has other ideas…

Most of all I understand what it truly means to trust God and press into his comfort. Believing Him because Joy does come in the morning even though it takes a while. I guess that’s why I was able to say- “nevertheless not my will but Yours be done”.

He has handed every power to judge humanity to me because I was human.

I am that part of Him that truly gets you and everyone else Faith, hence I AM the mediator between God and man and no one comes to the father except through ME.

That’s why you can trust that my judgement will be fair and just.

So beloved, I get you, I can relate, I understand and most of all I can heal you and make you whole if only you’d let me all because I LOVE YOU.

That was it for me guys, so I’m able to truly trust and relax in his comfort because I know He made himself real to me ( scripture references for everything- Luke 4:14-30, Luke 22:39-45, Matthew 26:39, Hebrews 4:15, Hebrews 2:18, John 19:25-29, John 19, John 5:22)

How could you? You watch me wallow in my pain and do nothing about it. Now look at me I’m a mess. It could have all been avoided you know, I mean why are you even supernatural if you can’t use your supernatural powers for me? Infact I quit, what is the essence of this whole Christian thing if all I’m doing is losing!

Well let’s face it we’ve all been mad at God at one point or another. Some of us may not be as vocal about it but you know the feeling.

So I was angry at God and I so desperately wanted to get out of any pain I was experiencing at the time that I didn’t even stop for once to think maybe there’s something I need to learn from this.

I can’t even imagine Job’s pain having lost all he had ever worked hard for his whole life in a matter of hours but do you know Job’s first reaction? He fell down on his face and worshipped! Say what? At some point I began to think that maybe Job was fictional character I mean that can’t be real.

But, it took me for me to experience God’s loving kindness and faithfulness to actually understand why there’s a chance that was actually Job’s first reaction.

You all know it’s very easy to be all about loving, serving and worshipping God when life is fairly okay. But what happens when life starts taking a downward spiral.

So yes I was angry at God, but do you know the sweet part, God was NOT angry at me for feeling that way about Him and I believe it’s the same for all you. He was still with me all along even when I tried to distance myself from Him.

God is not mad at you

Yes it hurt, yes it felt like He abandoned me but I’m telling you He’s right beside you whether you feel or not. It’s left for you to acknowledge him and take advantage of his Grace and comforting presence.

The mistake we make is allowing the brokenness and hurt define you and place a permanent dent on you and your life but that should not be the case. I’ve learnt that if God is not going to take you out of the storm you best believe he’s going to be with you through it.

Remember, nothing lasts forever and this too shall pass.

When I got over my whole anger bouts, I went back to Him and He lovingly received me back. He helped me to understand and see for myself that in the breaking is the blessing and I didn’t make that up because I am a living testimony.

So when you’re done being angry, pick yourself up ,go back to God tell him Okay God I surrender, handle my situation as you please and help me to see the blessing in this pain amen.

What is this love that everyone is dying to have these days? Is it a feeling or better still an emotion? What good does it really do for us when we seek it from other people because we all at some point try to seek it out from a person and when the person fails to deliver we get all bitter…

Better still why do we seek this thing called love so much in this world today. Is it to make us feel better about ourselves or to help our insecurities or to avoid been lonely or just because we feel like we have got to have one because everyone else does…

We all get to that stage in life where we question what this whole love thing is all about and sometimes it sickens me when I can’t really find answers. So I just give up and go with the flow like everyone else I guess.

Now I know God and so as is my usual custom I turn to God; asking why are we all in the chase of this thing called Love. If it’s such a beautiful thing why do I see so much hurt and pain in the lives of people who claim to love one another or better still those who say they are in love.

I thought the preacher claims your word states that perfect love casts out fear, but this love I know breeds doubt, fear, panick, shame, hate, and even more insecurity. This thing that I call love is not permanent it comes and goes and oh when it comes I’m not sure if it’s even good cuz I start to think compromising thoughts and if not careful they gradually become actions and when it goes I feel empty oh so empty that anything but love fills.

So I had the wrong idea of what love truly is.

And God showed me a Love that contradicts my every opinion about what I thought Love was.

Love so sweet that I could almost taste it…
Love that makes me so in love that I can’t help but exude it at every opportunity I get…
Love so pure that at its presence the whiteness of the snow seems dark…
Love so amazing that the only thing that comes out of it is Good!

Now this Love, I didn’t get out of anybody. God didn’t bring me some oh so perfect prince charming to sweep me off my feet. As a matter of fact I’m as single as can be lol (story for another post).

But this Love was placed on the inside of me and it changed my life, my thought pattern and my entire being and I can’t say it all in one post so this post is going to have a 2nd part!

The trauma was so intense that you locked up the pain, the shame and the guilt away, so you don’t really have to deal. Maybe like me you make yourself forget about it and brush off your exterior so well that it hides how much of a mess it made you inside. I mean after all its all in the past now, you don’t need to talk about it and even the bible said old things are passed away right?

Now I have come to know Christ everything should all of a sudden be ok, not minding whatever wounds that needs to heal, what fractures needed to be made whole, what aches and pains that needed to be suited. Well for me everything didn’t become ok immediately.

So I went on, holding on to a particular pain that I made myself believe I had let go until one night. I was with friends and one thing led to another that I reopened this wound I had led myself to believe was not there. As I was narrating the story just out of mere contribution to the gist, I started tearing up unwillingly. I was able to convince my friends that no I was ok, I’m better now, not minding that I was still seriously tearing up. So I left to my room and that’s when it hit me that maybe I haven’t actually let go just yet. I remember blaming God that night for what happened; not coming through for me even after I prayed so much about it. Then I remembered I had this Joyce meyer’s magazine under my pillow that I’d been meaning to read. So I did and came across an article (not one more night with the frogs) and the words only told me that God was right there with me.

You see God helped me to see that I was unwilling to surrender my ashes for Him to give me his beauty (Isaiah 61:1-3) and until I did, I will not get the full beauty of being in him. Maybe what happened to you was not your fault, but it doesn’t have to be an excuse to stay unhealthy. You can’t undo what people did to you and you have to realise that the most important moment in your life is RIGHT NOW. Press into your relationship with God and get His beauty for your ashes, your joy for mourning and praise for heaviness. Those were some of the words God used to comfort me that night. I’m not able to give proper answers as to why God allowed me go through what I went through at the time but I know I’m a better and stronger person now.

Some of you like me may need more prayers and teaching to bring you into full healing, whatever it is you need maybe more counselling, just make sure to surrender your ashes. I surrendered my ashes to God and I got His beauty.